Tech

Social media giant Facebook is investing $100 million to support local news organizations during the coronavirus pandemic, in addition to its previous commitment to spend $300 million over a three-year period. Around $25 million of the new package will be emergency grant funding for local news via the Facebook Journalism Project. A further $75 million is

Google on Friday removed the Android version of the Infowars app from the Google Play online store, after comments made by Infowars founder Alex Jones about the COVID-19 pandemic were deemed false and harmful. Google Play was that last major internet platform that provided an outlet for Infowars, which trades in right-wing conspiracy theories and

YouTube is launching a global campaign with top creators, music artists and celebs urging people to stay home during the COVID-19 pandemic — and watch YouTube videos. The video platform has been promoting the hashtag #StayHome for the past several weeks. Now YouTube has lined up several big influencers and celebrities to promote the message

March 27, 2020 2:44PM PT Eight-bit diehards, get your thumbs ready: pop rock darlings Weezer have launched a nostalgia-heavy online side-scrolling action game, playable via web browsers.  The “The End of the Game” game has users playing as one of the band’s four members and jumping and shooting their way in a (surprisingly difficult) boss

Google and parent Alphabet are pitching in to help small businesses, health organizations and governments dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. The internet company has earmarked more than $800 million for coronavirus relief, about three-fourths of which ($610 million) is in the form of Google Ad credits to small and midsize businesses and governmental orgs, Alphabet

Wondering if you need to get tested for COVID-19 — and what to do next if you have symptoms of infection? Apple now has an app for that. The company Friday released a free screening tool and set of resources to help people stay informed and take the steps to protect their health during the

While it might seem counterintuitive that music streams would decline at a time when so many Americans were ordered to stay home, data-savvy label executives were neither startled nor concerned by the 7.6% drop in plays that happened in the March 13-19 tracking week. Simply put, the say it’s down to focus on news and

Hooq, the multi-territory streaming service in Asia backed by WarnerMedia and Sony, filed Friday for voluntary liquidation in Singapore. In recent weeks it had been reported that the company had failed to make full remittances to some of its in-production original series. The company was started in 2015 and remains majority controlled by Singaporean phone

LG Electronics USA is the first TV manufacturer to support Movies Anywhere, the digital-movie streaming service joint venture of four major Hollywood studios. Movie Anywhere’s collection of 7,900-plus movies, including new releases and classics, are now available to customers with LG Smart TVs (2017 models and later, running webOS version 3.5 or later). Movies Anywhere

March 27, 2020 5:34AM PT Apple is making the Final Cut Pro X video-editing suite and Logic Pro X recording-studio package available for free 90-day trials amid the stay-at-home COVID-19 crisis. “We hope customers who are home and looking for something new to master will try out these free trials and start making some awesome

BBC Studios and China’s Huawei Video have struck a deal in which British TV content is supplied to Huawei consumer mobile devices in 26 countries. The deal was announced to coincide with the launch of Huawei’s P40 cell phone. Some 300 hours of drama, comedy and factual shows will be available to stream via Huawei’s

Grammy Awards are great, but the Recording Academy’s greatest contribution to the music industry is arguably MusiCares — its charitable foundation to support music industry workers in need. In simpler times, it helps people with everything from emergency health care  to substance-abuse treatment, but these days it has focused on helping music people — everyone,

Dish Network’s over-the-top Sling TV service is offering free access to its 45-channel live TV bundle for 14 days. The company is positioning the move as a “public service” as millions of Americans are quarantined at home during the COVID-19 crisis. From March 26 to April 5, U.S. consumers who are not current customers of

A collaborative series charting Australians’ experiences of the chaos and confusion unleashed by Covid-19 has been unveiled as the first original content production at documentary-specialist streaming platform iwonder. “Coronavirus & Me” will make use of user-generated-content submissions, edited together to make short documentaries. These will evolve in real-time to reveal how society is adapting to

Disney Plus zoomed out of gate in Europe and the U.K. on Tuesday, according to third-party data estimates — reflecting pent-up demand for the Mouse House’s streaming service and, perhaps, agita among parents looking for relief amid governmental stay-at-home directives. On March 24, Disney Plus debuted in the U.K., Ireland, Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain and

BuzzFeed, hoping to forestall layoffs with an economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic already under way, is reducing the salaries of most employees. CEO Jonah Peretti said he won’t be taking any compensation until the crisis has passed. Peretti announced the salary cuts at a BuzzFeed all-hands meeting Wednesday and provided additional details in

The buyer of Moviefone — who snapped up the site for the fire-sale price of $1 million in a bankruptcy auction — has now come forward: It’s Cleveland O’Neal III, creator and producer of syndicated daytime entertainment show “Made in Hollywood.” O’Neal’s holding company Born in Cleveland LLC was the winning bidder last week in

March 25, 2020 10:01AM PT UPDATED: Netflix’s streaming service was unavailable Wednesday to some users for about an hour, the company confirmed. “Some of our members in the U.S. and Europe were unable to use Netflix via our website for around an hour this morning,” a Netflix spokesperson said in a statement to Variety, sent

With Italy, France and Spain in full lockdown in the face of the unrelenting coronavirus outbreak, their respective film industries are preparing to take exceptional measures that could limit the anticipated economic damage by opening themselves up to an uncharted gamble in streaming. To date, dozens of film releases have been postponed to between July and October

Peacock, NBCUniversal’s new video streaming service, now has one fewer of its crown jewels to drive it into homes across the U.S. this summer when it’s rolling out nationwide. That became clear yesterday when International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach and Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe announced that the Tokyo Olympic Games (originally

Multi-territory Asian streamer Viu has struck a new content supply with Singapore’s MediaCorp, and extended its existing three-year-old arrangement with Thailand’s GMM Grammy. Viu enjoyed initial success with carriage of Korean content to a hungry Asian region. It is now diversifying its focus to include more Chinese-language and Thai shows. The GMM Grammy agreement allows

Ad spending is falling off a cliff amid the COVID-19 pandemic — and Facebook and Google, the two heavyweights in digital advertising, are expected to bear the brunt of the downturn in terms of sheer dollars lost. The two internet giants together could see more than $44 billion in worldwide ad revenue evaporate in 2020,

The media and entertainment business was thriving as we entered the new decade in 2020 B.C. (“Before Coronavirus”). All segments — movies, television, mobile video, music, games, esports, immersive (VR and AR), live and experiential entertainment — expanded over the past decade. Massively. To be sure, new platforms like streaming and mobile cannibalized some of

Wild Bunch TV-sold “Albatros,” Turner Latin America’s banner title “Amarres” and REInvent Studios’ globe-trotting “Peacemaker” will feature at a 54 series-strong Buyers Showcase, which launches today March 25 as a backbone of Series Mania’s online Digital Forum, Europe’s first big festival experiment in a virtual marketplace. Also featuring a powerful Co-Pro Pitching lineup, packed by

March 24, 2020 3:45PM PT Classic episodes of “One Day at a Time” are coming to the free TV streaming service Pluto TV, in a special pop-up channel. Pluto TV is launching the new “One Day at a Time” 24-hour streaming channel Tuesday (March 24) at 10 p.m. ET, following the debut of Season 4

YouTube, aiming to reduce strain on internet networks during the coronavirus pandemic, will temporarily serve video in lower-quality standard-definition (SD) format across the globe. However, YouTube users can override the setting — and still watch content in HD formats if available. But by delivering lower bit rates with SD as the default, YouTube and parent

Amazon Music, Facebook, SiriusXM-Pandora, Spotify, Tidal, and YouTube Music announced today that they are contributing to the COVID-19 Relief Fund announced last week by the Recording Academy’s charitable foundation MusiCares to support music industry workers in need. According to the announcement, the fund, which was established with a $2 million donation from the two organizations, has raised

For now, Netflix is not picking up the phone when customers call for help. The company says it currently is providing only live chat and online support globally, citing the surge in support requests and given that customer-service agents working from home. “The COVID-19 crisis has meant that thousands of our customer support agents are

Quarantine and chill: Netflix is seeing unprecedented levels of video streaming, as millions of people are homebound during the COVID-19 outbreak and looking for a diversion. And investors are gaining confidence that Netflix will be one of the few entertainment companies to see gains amid the pandemic. Netflix shares shot up 8.4% on Monday, bucking

Eros Now, the streaming arm of Indian film giant Eros International, is to add an English-language layer as part of a partnership with NBC Universal. The English track is part of the streamer’s soon-to-launch upgrade Eros Now Prime, which will also encompass short video service Quickie. The deal, covering some 2,000 hours of NBCU content,